The Coathanger Pelican
by DemonsInsideMe
Summary: This is the beginning of a collection of short interludes involving hallucinations seen through the mind/eyes of a teenage girl. Described are lengths of time where abnormal events transpire, resulting in frightening visions. DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

**The Coathanger Pelican**

A collection of incidences and manic episodes.

Cautiously written by Jaclyn Johnston.

For Derek.

* * *

_"Sometimes when you've lived in a cage your whole life, the world seems like a very big place."_

* * *

I don't even know, not really.

This is what I remember: We were watching a movie. It was at the end toward the credits, and we were snuggling comfortably in bed. Then there was this unexpected, explosive pain in my right side, spreading up from my hip to my ribcage and across my diaphragm. That by itself would have been bearable, but I started shaking, arms clamped down around my torso, and after that...I barely remember anything. Snippets. There was Derek, nothing, bright light, the monster face and then the nothing again. I remember opening my eyes and seeing the monster face, and as a knee-jerk reaction I tried to hit it, to make it go away. During the nothing I heard Derek once. He was telling me to focus on him, to listen to the sound of his voice and ignore whatever it was I saw.

But he didn't know what it was that I saw. Its hulking shadow prowled about in the darkness beyond my field of vision, bloodshot eyes filled with malice and utter contempt. It was pacing back and forth, back and forth, its heavy tread like a steady thump-thump in my ears. It never left the shadows, but somehow it always seemed to grow closer with time. The longer I was with it, in its formidable presence, it drew nearer.

Then something like static and I just...woke up. I remember looking up at Derek as he leaned over me, and he was staring at me, his liquid caramel eyes wide with fear and wonderment. I had this overwhelming feeling of panic, like he was going to get up and leave, or tell me I was fucking crazy.

But he didn't.

It's difficult to explain. It's in my head, and I know what it is, but it doesn't make sense and I know that. Attempting to sort out the madness and tell you is like smearing hundreds of shades of paint on a canvas, messing them all together, and trying to separate them so it looks like a painting of the Sistine Chapel.

It's different every time, but somehow it seems very similar. The biggest consistency seems to be the monster face. It always shows up during the nothing, and it stays. The whole thing is like small movie clips. First you see it, then you don't. The beast talks in its own monstrous way. When it opens its mouth (which it does quite often, grinning in a malicious sort of way), there is static and a high, metal-on-metal sort of sound. I tell it to go away, and for a time it does. It always comes back, though. It's hard to describe just what happens during these...episodes. Sometimes I try to run from it.

It takes over my senses. All of them, as far as I can tell. The easiest way to explain the smell is fall. That cold, dead scent of rotting plant matter and ruminating vegitation. It sinks into my skin and clings, not like normal cold, but like something alive. Crawling. It takes over my sight, smell, touch, hearing... And there's this taste, like blood, but thicker. Congealed blood. I can't breathe when that happens; I'm choking and I can't dislodge whatever it is that's in my trachea. Last time--when Derek was there--it wasn't as bad. The lack of oxygen was far worse than it had ever been, but the smell was muted, somewhat distant, and the feeling of cold, crawling things was, too.

He told me what I did and said. I think he must be more than a little crazy to still love me. He told me that at one point he placed my hand on his chest, and his heartbeat seemed to calm me down for a time, but then there was 'an intense moment' where I wasn't breathing, and my hand clamped down over his heart, hard.

He said I left marks there.

* * *

I saw it in his face this time. It was like a macabre beast, unlike the monster face and yet the same in so many ways. We were lying in bed, content with the day, sunlight creeping under the lip of the curtain like a curious kitten. I looked at him, and he was smiling in that relaxed way that makes my heart light, the faintest hint of crow's feet appearing at the corners of his eyes. I blinked. Then, giggling as he tickled my ear with his tongue, I turned to swat him away playfully.

For an instant, everything around him vanished. There was only darkness and that face framed by his unruly, mocha hair. The skin was pale and waxen, stretched over the bones like diaphanous rawhide, seeming fragile and easily torn. Blue veins moved in a spider web pattern beneath the surface of the skin. Deep purplish-brown shadows rimmed catlike eyes, which were boring into my head, as if he was trying to see inside the back of my skull. His sharp teeth were crimson with blood, and it ran in deep burgundy trails around and over his lips and dribbled off his chin. Blood, thick and cloying, the smell of it suffocating, was on his face as if he had greedily devoured raw meat. Bits of grayish flesh were lodged between his teeth, and his mouth gaped open in a silent, menacing snarl.

I drew in a panicked breath along with a tiny squeak of terror. I jerked away instinctively, buried my face in the pillow and bit my lip to quell the panic. He asked me what was wrong, his deep, rumbling voice filled with genuine concern. I couldn't look at him, not yet.

In a few moments my hunched shoulders began to relax muscle by individual muscle. I turned back around. My beautiful Derek lay beside me, topaz eyes innocent, brow wrinkled in distress. I could feel that my face was passive, though my eyes felt wide and I couldn't blink. I ran my hands over his face, feeling the familiar high cheekbones, strong jaw, and perfect nose. I turned him this way and that, examining him in the warm light. Whatever demon had manifested itself in his features in that moment was gone, and my Derek was back.

I couldn't look away, afraid that if I did the demon would return. It was highly improbable, but still, the possibility was real.

What if it came back and decided to stay for good?

* * *

_Author's Note:_

_This is the beginning of what will be a collection of short interludes involving hallucinations and spirits seen through the mind and eye of a teenage girl. Described in each section is a length of time where certain abnormal events transpire, resulting in these episodes of frightening--and sometimes violent--hallucinations. Whether it will be few or many, I cannot say. That will be determined by the girl._

_Based on real life events._

_Much Love,_

_Jax :3_


	2. Chapter 2

Silence is a rarity in this world, as oxygen is scarce on the moon—even rarer if you contemplate the true depth of sound. Even in a supposedly 'soundproof' room, there is the presence of a low static-electric charge, a _hum-zap-crack_ of tension or emotion. Even in the absence of speech or song, there is noise. It has been an observation of mine that people have an uncomfortable aversion to silence. It is a medium which may convey dishonesty, unease, contentment, outrage, insolence, petulance, unspeakable joy, or crushing grief. Instantly. They—we—play music; create minute, inane sounds with the tapping of a pencil, fingers, toes, softly cluck the tongue on the roof of the mouth; whistle; and breathe heavily, among other things, to shatter the discomfort.

We are a race and a species and a goddamn _planet_ of noisemakers.

My ears are constantly assaulted with a cacophony of those small sounds, distracting me from the overlying tones of speech, laughter, car horns, and even sirens. Here, in this pocket paradise tucked away in the most unexpected place, I stand on the precarious edge—of sanity and of a fifty-foot drop—and let the small things sift into my consciousness like the tiny grains of sand through a sieve, leaving the larger chunks of granite and quartz that compose the Earth and its larger inhabitants behind.

I hear a faint buzzing near my ear, identified immediately as a mosquito; only one of millions, _trillions, _in the north woods of Minnesota. A barely-discernible puff of air coaxes the leaves to trembling. As I take in a calming breath and extend the toes of my right foot out before me, I sense the emptiness that is beneath them. Leaning forward, keeping my eyes closed and my muscles relaxed, I allow gravity to take a firmer and momentarily more perceivable hold on my physical being.

A rush of cool air tugs playfully at the strands of hair that have wriggled free of my ponytail, presses persistently upon my eyelids and the optical spheres beneath them. As if some other being, some other consciousness has taken possession of my body, I feel my arms extend and create a point above my head. I hit the water at a slightly off-kilter angle, feel my muscles counteract the movement, feel my respiratory system hit the AUTOLOCK switch as I dive deeper and deeper, feel the water grow colder and closer and darker.

And one of my favorite quotes from Stephen King's novel, _Dreamcatcher, _drifts into my mind like a slender, fluffy-tailed, amber-eyed fox, curling itself 'round my mind and making itself essentially at home.

_Hello darkness, my old friend. _

* * *

_"I'll sit and watch the grass grow while you_  
_Rot and burn to nothing._  
_And I'll while away my afternoons as you_  
_Decompose to dirt._  
_And I'll watch your sleepless eyes gaze up at_  
_Stars that aren't there._  
_I'll watch your eyes glaze over with the _  
_Heavy sleep of death._  
_I'll watch and wait as you fall farther into nothingness._  
_I'll be there when carrion come knocking _  
_On the windows to your soul._  
_And create a pleasant fiction that you're_  
_Covered in sandpaper, tar, and fleas_  
_And burning merrily upon the threshold of Forever's Gates._  
_And I'll love it, every minute._  
_Every minute of it."_


End file.
